good morning. it is wednesday, july 27. this is your "a.m. wake-up call." i'm ali velshi joining you live from new york. it is 5:00 on the east coast. debt, deadline and deadlock, maybe some dread as well. there is no deal in the debt ceiling debate. a vote on house speaker john boehner's plan was supposed to happen today. we're just learning that it is not going to happen. didn't quite cut it basically. the congressional budget office says boehner's plan did not

offer the spending and deficit cuts that republicans thought it would. cnn's chief white house correspondent jessica yellin spends the next 18 seconds giving us the big picture. >> reporter: what's happening now is democrats are waiting. they're just waiting to see what happens with the republican's bill before making their own move in the senate. the big picture here is neither the republican's bill in the house nor the democrats' bill in the senate seems to have the votes to get through both houses of congress. so we're back at stalemate. >> and so it's wednesday and there's no deal. the ted line is tuesday of next week. if congress can't get it done by then, you could start to see higher interest rates, a declining dollar and other problems. the white house website has put up a chart that breaks down the u.s. debt by administration over the last ten years. i was just looking at it. more than $3.5 trillion because of changes to the economy, not policy changes, but less tax income and things like that.

the two wars, tax cuts, t.a.r.p., the so-called bank bailout, the stimulus is all listed there. worth checking out if you have some time. don't worry, it's safe for work. we do love our charts. a federal granld jury in alabama indicted a man for allegedly threatening to kill president obama. the 21-year-old suspect is a native of uzbekistan. he got his hands on grenades and a machine gun. he had been living in an extended stay motel outside birmingham, alabama. his next extended stay could be in prison with a very late checkout. a democratic congressman found himself in the custody of u.s. park police. representative luis guiterrez of illinois was part of a rally against deporting illegal immigrants. he and other protesters sat down in a place where they were supposed to be kept moving which won him a pair of plastic handcuffs, a ride in a van and a $100 fan. he managed to get back to the house, to the floor for the last

vote of the day. david wu of oregon who said he wouldn't resign is resigning. he says he's out of the house after the debt ceiling issue is resolved which means he could be there for a long time. wu has been accused of making unwanted sexual advanceses towards the daughter of a campaign donor. this show has been casey anthony free for several days now. the streak was short and now it's over. this won't take long, i promise. the judge in the case is waiting until late october to release the names of jurors. florida law requires him to make the list public. he says america needs a, quote, cooling off period, first. he's apparently afraid for the jury's safety which gives you an idea of how hot the hate affair with ms. anthony is still burning. the hang seng and nikkei both closed down, the dax and ftse trading down right now. let's go to nina dos santos in london. you are ahead of everybody on this. you've been looking at bond yields, now you're looking at currencies and how people are

shifting out of the dollar out of concern for what might happen. tell me what you're seeing. >> over the course of the last 30 years or so, of course, the u.s. dollar has been the traditional safe place to put your money, hasn't it, ali? that seems to be changing as everybody gets increasingly concerned about the potential risk of a technical default by the united states. one of the beneficiaries has been the markets of gold. gold is traditionally the safe haven. it's now surpassed yet another record this week, competing $1,623 an ounce. what traders have been telling me, ali, is at that price it's already a rather expensive investment. that's one of the reasons why people are taking their dollar money out of the dollar and also putting it into other currencies that are deemed particularly safe. notably the swiss frank which has risen to another record against the greenback and other interesting currencies further afield such as, for instance, the aussie dollar that are backed by significant commodities.

you can kind of buy into the precious plettals themes and other metals themes by investing in the money rather than the expensive metals themselves. the aussie dollar has risen to a 30-year high against the greenback and keeps rising. i should also point out, ali, a strong currency isn't necessarily good news, particularly if you are a significant export-driven market. japan is suffering exactly this fate. the yen has traditionally been a pretty safe and strong place to put your money. the yen has been steadily rising against the u.s. dollar and rising yet again. that is not good news for car makers like nissan and toyota. it means when they sell cars in the united states and repatriate that money they make fewer money for u.s. dollar sales. >> nissan has done well, a nice recovery from what's gone on in japan. you're right, for exporting countries this isn't great news. people keep telling me the u.s. dollar is still the reserve currency of the world. is that likely to change?

>> frankly, of course, it's not likely to change in the next, let's say, ten years or so, unless something completely off the wall happened. a number of the world's most significant currencies have their economy pegged on the u.s. dollar. china holds no less than $1.2 trillion of u.s. treasuries. it keeps its currency low by carrying on buying the dollar and frankly that situation, ali, isn't likely to change, even if the u.s. does enter a technical default. then again, what we should remember is they're going to be issuing more money, aren't they? the appetite for u.s. debt may be just little less after all this. >> i like the fact you're pointing out technical default. it's a term that we're going to be discussing a lot over the course of the next few days. nina dos santos in london. no one las to tell you it's been hot in the united states. nice and cool this morning on the east coast. it's still hot in parts of the

country. before we go to meteorologist rob marciano, just how hot has it been? i'll let jay leno do the talking. >> it is so hot, it is unbelievable out. >> how hottest, jay? >> at the nude beach, attractive people were taking their clothes off. that's how hot it was. >> that's hot. >> it is so hot justin timberlake said forget benefits, i want to meet friends with air conditioning. that's how hot. >> it was so hot in new york, the yankees actually work up a sweat beating the mariners. that's how hot it was. >> let's go live to rob marciano live from atlanta. i tweeted as i was walking into work this morning what a great feeling it was to walk into work in manhattan in this beautiful, almost late spring, early fall-type weather. temperatures still above 100 in the belly of the country.

>> that warm air, ali, is going to come back up towards the northeast as we get closer to the weekend. today and tomorrow, enjoy the cool and low humidity. across southern plains and texas, heat indices over 105, 110 in some cases. places like dallas and oklahoma city continue to see temperatures measured in the shade without the humidity over 100. the actual temperature forecast is 105 for dallas, 105 for oklahoma city. for both of those cities, that means two dozen days in a row where temperatures have competed the 100-degree mark. not a record for dallas yet, but may be soon. we have drought issues across texas. a tropical system heading that way wouldn't necessarily be bad news, depending on the strength. we're watching this item of concern heading towards the yucatan peninsula and into the gulf of mexico. it looks like it's going to become our next tropical depression, potentially next tropical storm. right now forecast models are

bringing whatever it will be towards the texas coastline as we get closer to the weekend. where exactly obviously we don't know yet. texas coastline, louisiana coastline, you'll all be threatened by this thing. it would be nice if we got it to be a weak to moderate tropical storm, ali. then it would bring beneficial rains to extremely drought-stricken texas. >> how bad could it get? >> until we get it into close circulation and deem it to a tropical storm, the models do a horrible job figuring out how strong it will be. >> any flight delays at the moment? >> no. we have volcanos we're dealing with across parts of alaska and chile, the latest of which is with this picture. do we have it? show that beautiful volcano footage. we'll get it for you the next half hour. >> this is as good it gets. the morning volcanos on cnn.

you and me, rob. we'll get those pictures for the next time we talk. rob marciano in the extreme weather center. you've probably heard that websites and phone lines were jammed yesterday at congress. constituents complaining about their frustrations over the debt ceiling debacking. if that's not getting through to the president and lawmakers, listen to a message with a different beat. i'll show you on the other side of this. first, our quote of the day. "sanity will prevail." find out which newsmaker said this about the debt crisis. it's ten minutes after the hour. it flows with clean water. it makes its skyline greener and its population healthier. all to become the kind of city people want to live and work in. somewhere in america, we've already answered some of the nation's toughest questions. and the over sixty thousand people of siemens are ready to do it again. siemens. answers.

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a vacation on a budget with expedia. make it work. booking a flight by itself is an uh-oh. see if we can "stitch" together a better deal. that's a hint, antoine. ooh! see what anandra did? booking your flight and hotel at the same time gets you prices hotels and airlines won't let expedia show separately. book it. major wow factor! where you book matters. expedia. 13 minutes after the hour. back to the quote of the day "sanity will prevail." white house press secretary jay carney said this about the debt talks to cnn's piers morgan last night. >> we are confident, the president is confident that, if you will, sanity will prevail, that while there are certain members of congress who seem to

think that defaulting on our ob gapgss for the first time in our history wouldn't be such a serious thing, we couldn't disagree more strongly. and those folks we believe are in the minority, that most of the elected members of congress understand that there is no option here, that we have to take the necessary action to ensure simply that we pay the bills that we've already run up. >> we'd like to give you a lot of different views. you heard from the white house. here is comedian jon stewart giving his response to the duelling speeches from the president and house speaker john boehner over the debt stalemate. >> i think your financial austerity path message may be slightly undercut by the begolden shared red carpet path you walk down to tell us about it. isn't there any way to to do the tighten the belt speech from a room that doesn't look like the foyer of the vatican. if willy wonka had to address

the chocolate shortage, might not do it from the water fall room. >> the bigger the government, the smaller the people. >> bigger government, smaller the people. that means the smaller the government, the bigger the people. which means if we get rid of government we'll have giant people! >> time for your political ticker with tim farley host of "mourning briefing." glad we had jon stewart to make it funny for us because it's no laughing matter. less than a week away from the debt ceiling deadline. tim, the news is that the house has delayed the vote. speaker boehner said two nights ago he was going to have a plan ready to vote on. now being delayed until tomorrow. >> for those that don't know, the bill has to be scored in the congressional budget office which does this, found out it didn't quite make the numbers he thought. he also had a numbers problem within the republican caucus. he can't get enough republican votes. he's going back, if not to square one, to square three to try to rewrite this bill. part of this is the house and

the senate waiting to see who goes first because then the other can follow. it's not quite clear that either the senator the house bill, even if it's rewritten, are going to be able to make it through. it may be some sort of compromise. we may even -- believe it or not there are sin sicks in d.c. who think this can happen. we may on monday have one of these one-line votes to raise the debt ceiling after all this. it staple remains to be played out. >> which is exactly what a whole bunch of people said we should have done in the beginning. >> in the first place, yeah. >> there's actually other business going on washington today. i wish everybody in washington were this up in arms about the jobs crisis. but the senate finance committee is actually going to be talking to the biggest employers in the country about jobs today. >> absolutely. when you talk about companies like walmart which will be represented by their ceo, michael duke, thomas faulk from kimberly clark and larry merlot with cvs. they have a lot of people working for them and a lot of people do business with these

companies. today they're looking attackses and how that affects business and hiring. this is relevant to a lot of people's lives lives, maybe more so than the debt ceiling. it seems like more and more the debt ceiling is getting into the vernacular every day, people starting to talk about this more. >> some people are giving up on talking about it altogether. why not rap about it? a rapper tells washington to raise the debt ceiling. let's listen to this together ♪ raise the debt ceiling ♪ raise the debt ceiling >> he's keeping the message simple, tim. >> yeah, he is. he's cumulonimbus, from what i understand, he makes it rain. that's one of the signs that -- when you get a rap song like this, grand master ali, in the american vernacular, once you've done that, you've probably hit a mainstream issue. i'm not sure if it's going to be on the hot 100.

>> pretty phat, tim, p-h-a-t. tim farley, host of "morning briefing." imagine if you could kiss your yearly flu shot good-bye with a single, universal long lasting vaccine. its could be in reach in the next five years. as you know, the flu bug my taets every year. that's why you need to get jabbed annually. this new type of vaccine would target the types of the virus that don't change protecting you against all strains. you learned something new last night but can't remember it this morning, maybe you can blame it on fragmented sleep. researchers found remembering things throughout the night, it can lead the interrupted sleep, sleep apnea, alcoholism and alzheimer's disease. the only thing i don't understand about that story is what exactly a mouse has to remember. a bunch of smart kids at

brig ham young university are using pvc to make artificial limbs. they are changing lives, sending them to developing countries. they have a clinic stabbed in tonga. >> while we were there, we able to give away about 15 legs, or legs in the process of being maid. we have a lits of 45 to 50 people ready for a prosthetic. >> the average cost for a pvc prosthetic, by the way, $25. a new way to tell if someone is on drugs is as close adds your fingertip. but first, every day on this show, we let you know what national day it is. today is the most random one we've had. today, july 27th, is "take your pants for a walk" day. when you take your pants for a walk, you can wear slacks, britches, sweats or short pants. i'd recommend that you're in your pants when you take them for a walk. it's 19 minutes after the hour. .

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it is 22 minutes after the hour. here are three things to have on your radar. at 10:00 eastern some top ceos answer questions from the senate finance committee. at noon, the tea party express hosts a rally on capitol hill to pass the cut, cap and balance bill which has no chance of being signed by the president. we are watching and waitedest

for the latest out of d.c., what happens next as lawmakers remain at an impasse on a debt ceiling deal. we'll before back to that shortly. now around the world with zain verjee who is live in london. boy, what a story. a 14-year-old american teenager is found guilty in a mexican court of be heading at least four people, kidnapping three others. what do you know about this? >> exactly. he's a u.s. citizen, only 14 years old. he was asked why did you do this and how did you do this. listen to what he said. >> he's going to be spending three years in a correctional facility. a lot of people would be asking, only three years? under mexican law, that's the maximum sentence that he can get because he's only 14 years old. he's also got to pay a fine of

$400,000. many are saying this is the work of the drug gangs that are now hiring minors and young kids to do their dirty work for them. ali? >> afghanistan, tell us about this, sainl, launching a new tv show called "the ministry." from people i've talked to, they say it seems like the afghan version of "the office." >> that's exactly what it's supposed to be, the afghan version of "the office." they're even going to shoot it in the same way, this loose documentary format style, too. what they're saying is they're not just dealing with an office scenario, but they'll be focusing on the ministry of garbage, but they want to focus on important afghan issues like corruption. that is going to be a show to watch if you're in afghanistan. it's going to be on the main local commercial tv channel there. speaking of shows, ali, i was watching ""the daily show"," guess who popped up. take a look at this picture.

jon stewart comparing, yes, ali velshi to, oh, no, an egg. >> an egg. >> an egg with glasses. >> good glasses. i want you to know i took offense to this, ali. this kind of upset me. i didn't think it was fair. i actually thought this was better. take a look at what i came up with, ali as the moon. how about ali as watermelon. >> nice. >> or this one is my favorite. ali as baseball. >> oh, that is good. egg has no personality. zain, you definitely captured the essence of me better than jon stewart did. always a pleasure to see you as always. zain verjee in london. there is a bit of a resemblance to an egg, i have to say. a new way to tell if somebody under the influence of drugs. a fingerprint. a british company developed a

devise that analyzes the sweat pours in fingertips. the news was announced at a conference last week. no word when it will be used at a traffic stop near you. you know all the invisible radio waves around it, researchers captured that electromagnetic energy. they store it, builds up to power, things like sensors or micro processors. that's neat and scary at the same time. time for the businessman's special. dirty hotels. we have the dirtiest hotels from trip adviser up next. it's 26 after the hour. that's gross. with roc®retinol and antioxidants. lines, wrinkles, and sun damage will fade. roc multi-correxion. correct what ages you. roc multi-correxion. somewhere in america, a city comes to life. it moves effortlessly, breathes easily. it flows with clean water. it makes its skyline greener

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it's wednesday july 27. this is your "a.m. wake-up call." i'm ali velshi joining you live from new york. it's 30 minutes after the hour. it's like debt ceiling deja vu. democrats fighting republicans. republicans fighting republicans. still no deal while the clock ticks closer to august 2nd. that's the day the u.s. can no longer pay all its bills. house speaker john boehner is scrambling to make last-minute edits to his proposal. his plan for a two-step debt limit hike is under fire from the left and from the right. >> this republican will not vote to raise the dealt ceiling. i will not do that. >> we advocated something much more in the house plan that the budget passed. >> democrats will not vote for it. democrats will not vote for it. democrats will not vote for it. it's dead on arrival in the senate. >> the house vote on the plan has been pushed from today to tomorrow. the world is watching. global markets are watching and

they're wobbling. imf chief christine lagarde is nervous. >> i am worried because this debt ceiling issue has not been cracked. >> by the way, you can hear more of christine lagarde's very important interview with fareed zakaria this sunday at 10:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. school kids in memphis may be heading back to class on august 8th as scheduled. the start date had been in limbo because of a money spat. basically the school board threatened to delay the academic year until it got $55 million from the city. overnight board members decided to let schools start if the city meets a few conditions, including a $12 million payment which is due on august 5th. sports reporter slash stalking victim erin andrews is taking her convicted stalker to court.

andrews accuses the hotels of negligence, invasion of privacy and emotional distress by giving michael barrett access to rooms right next to her. he pled guilty to stalking the reporter. wells fargo lending practices are under the microscope of the justice report. the bank is the target of a new probe for taking advantage of african-american borrowers during the housing bubble, steering them into high-cost subprime loans. wells fargo is the nation's biggest home mortgage lender. canada got special love from steven colbert? why because he made a bucket list ahead of the debt ceiling deadline next week, you know, just in case. >> before our society collapses into khan ballistic gangs, i've always wanted to try bubble tea. it looks fun. the surprises, tasty little balls there. also, we should invade iran.

we know it won't be a quagmire because we've got to be out by next tuesday. and we should finally just do it with canada. the tension has been building for years. i'm talking crazy last night on earth, grabbing borders, slapping rockies half in french, no eye contact. eating pew teen out of each other's great lakes. >> pew teen is one of my favorite foods, it's french fries with cheese kurds which sort of burnt gravy on top of it. but that's for another time. christine romance back talking about business with us. let's talk about markets. it's not just the debt ceiling. there are companies reporting their earnings, how they're performing and hopefully somebody is paying attention to that. i know you are. >> i definitely am. it's the macro and the micro. you've got this big political crisis. at the same time these companies are telling us how they're doing and how the market and the

economy is faring for them, so today we eat get a lot lot more earnings. conoco phillips. we heard from bp yesterday said it had swung to a profit. boeing, we'll hear about this one. also delta and visa, the credit card company. all of these are among the companies that will be reporting here today. i'm tell you, the bottom line is many of these companies are reporting that the economy is getting better, but the clarity is something that they don't have. and we still aren't seeing all that hiring. still kind of this jobless recovery. futures are flat this morning, ali. flat and the bigger picture still, what's going to happen with the debt talks and the merger with canada, according to stephen colbert. >> why do you sound so funny this morning? >> i have a little cold. i'm sorry about that. when you get up so early, you don't realize it until i come and talk to you. >> it's adorable. a lot of states worried about what's going to happen if there's a problem with the debt ceiling. california is making plans ahead of it. tell us what they're doing? >> it has secured almost $5.5

billion loan from a bunch of different banks to make sure it has the cash on hand to cover any kind of shortfall from federal financing. something that many of you might not know out there, the federal government last year paid some $478 billion to states and even just next week or next month, rather, states are expecting to get just in tuition assistance about $10.5 billion. if you got a default and the treasury department deciding which bills to pay and which states to pay and what kinds of things to be laying out money for, some states are now trying -- starting to wonder how to cover the federal part of their financing. sxwerestingly, though, we'll talk to the florida governor later this morning who says not a problem for us. in fact, we don't think there's any problem if the united states doesn't raise the debt ceiling. at least one governor bucking the trend while california is trying to make sure it has cash on hand. >> a minority view that we're not going to be in trouble. we will hear from him. christine, i'll see you on

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how many checks does the u.s. government send out every second? six, 18 or 27? the answer is 27. that's according to president obama. that number came from one of his many speeches on the debt debate when he said the government spends out checks every month. that doesn't include medicare payments, food stamps and most of the spending done by the president department of defense. let's bring in joe johns live from washington, covering everything going on there. joe, less than a week away from the debt ceiling deadline. we're at least going to see some movement on the part of the house. john boehner's proposal was supposed to be ready. it's not, become delayed until tomorrow. >> yeah. this is one of those things you're watching sausage made on capitol hill, ali. you can look at this thing as an embarrassment for the speaker. however, the whole thing is an embarrassment for the u.s. government. according to sources, the speaker had to postpone this

vote because the people who crunched the budget numbers said his plan wouldn't create the savings he was looking for. he said his plan would add up to something like more than a trillion dollars. the congressional budget office said it only got up to about $850 billion. this is actually not really that bad of news for boehner because he's having real problems trying to get together the support from republican colleagues to pass whatever he puts on the floor at the end of the day. he gets an opportunity more or less to buy some time and round up the votes to try to get something passed on the floor of the house. meanwhile, at the top of this hour -- i think you talked a little bit about the sniping going on from democrats. they don't think the thing is going to pass. but if you read between the lines really, it does appear

that at least the congressional leaders seem to be moving closer together. the question is whether they can get the votes they need to pass something out of the house and the senate that the president will sign. that's the bottom line. >> all right. i know you're going to be watching it carefully and also watching the credit reports, the credit agencies' testimony. joe johns in washington. it is 42 minutes after the hour. here are three things to put on your radar. 10:00 a.m. some of the country's top ceos answer questions from the senate finance committee, asked to talk about jobs and economic growth. at noon the tea party express holds a rally on capitol hill to push for the cut, cap and balance plan which has no chance of passing the senator getting signed by the president. gop candidate her main cain is set to address the crowd. we are watching and waiting as is all of our best political team on television for the latest out of d.c., something, anything. what happens next as lawmakers

remain at an impasse on the debt ceiling debt deal and are we going to face a downgrade of u.s. debt? we're on top of it. nature apparently picked a really bad time to call the coach. the quarterback coach for the university of south carolina got arrested. the accusation? relieving himself outside a restaurant in the middle of downtown greenville. police say george magnus was drunk and uncooperative, at least he didn't play the "don't you know who i am" card. he's been suspended from coaching duties until all this get straightened out the national past time goes way past bedtime and ends on a very controversial call. braves versus pirates. the game lasted nearly 19 full innings, 6:39, ending with a controversial play at the plate that makes you wonder if the lateness of the hour made the umpire's eyes blurry. if you watched the whole game,

you'll be worthless today. i have a yankees game to go to. i can't afford a six-hour game. if you're making a call overseas or checking out websites based on other countries, you have this day in history to thank. back in 1866 communication was established between the united states and the united kingdom using a telegraph cable across the atlantic. it all started there. 44 minutes after the hour. every patient's past. and because the whole hospital's working together, there's a family who can breathe easy, right now. somewhere in america, we've already answered some of the nation's toughest healthcare questions. and the over 60,000 people of siemens are ready to do it again. siemens. answers. i could not make working and going to school work. it was not until the university of phoenix that i was able to work full-time, be a mom, and go to school.

the opportunities that i had at the university of phoenix, dealing with professionals teaching things that they were doing every day, got me to where i am today. i'm mayor cherie wood, i'm responsible fgest urban renewal project in utah, and i am a phoenix. [ male announcer ] find your program at phoenix.edu.

good morning. it's wednesday, july 27. this is your "a.m. wake-up call." i'm ali velshi live from new york. it's 47 minutes after the hour. let's go around the world with zain verjee live from london. zain, a girl caught in the middle of the attacks was updating her mom via text message. it's gut-wrenching to read those messages. >> it really is. pretty dramatic stuff. her mom was elsewhere and the daughter julie was at the camp in norway on utoya island. let me give you an idea of what they texted each other. julie says tell the police there is a madman running around and shooting people. they must hurry. her mother replies, the police know they've had many calls. julie, we are in fear of our lives. her mother responds, i understand that very well my darling. just stay hidden. do not move anywhere. what happened, ali, was that julie heard the gunshots go off

and saw the gunman in a police uniform and said she basically ran to the water along with some other people and they hit behind a big overhang, behind a rock and was texting her mother and kept saying i love you, i'm so sorry for all the times i was bad, i'll be much better, i love you. it was emotional. it was dramatic. she ended up being okay. but five of her best friends were killed. ali? >> it just must have been tragic, tragic to know -- to see that. i'm glad she's okay. but so many others weren't. zain, thanks very much. we'll catch up with you on "american morning" in about 12 minutes. dealt, deadline and deadlock, all part of the drama that the debt ceiling debate is creating. a vote on house speaker boehner's plan was supposed to happen today. it's not happening today. it might happen tomorrow. turns out his plan didn't quite cut it. the congressional budget office didn't offer the spending and deficit cuts republicans thought it would. cnn's chief house correspondent

jessica yellin spends the next 18 seconds giving us the big picture. what's happening now is democrats are waiting. they're just waiting to see what happens with the republicans' bill before making their own move in the senate. the big picture is that neither the republican bill or the democrat bill seems to have the votes to get through both houses of congress so we're back at stalemate. >> it's wednesday, no deal. the deadline is tuesday of next week. if congress can't get it done by then, you could see higher interest rates, a declining dollar. the white house website put up a chart that breaks down the u.s. dead by at'd administration over the next ten years. more than $3.5 trillion because of changes to the economy at loan, meaning less tax coming in, two wars, tax cuts, t.a.r.p., the bailout are all listed there. check out if you have time. it is safe for work and we love our charts. a federal grand jury in alabama indicted a man for allegedly threatening to kill president obama. the 21-year-old suspect is a

native of uzbekistan. authorities say he got his hands on grenades and a machine gun. he had been living in an extended stay motel outside birmingham. his next extended stay could be in prison with checkout many years later. democratic congressman protesting the president's immigration policies found himself in the custody of u.s. park police. representative luis guiterrez of illinois was part of a rally against deporting illegal immigrants. so he and some protesters sat down in a place where they were supposed to keep moving. that won guiterrez some plastic handcuffs, a ride in the fan and a $100 fan. he managed to make it back to the house floor in time for the last vote of the day. congressman david wu of oregon is resigning. the seven-term democrat sought of the house after the debt ceiling issue is resolved. wu has been accused of making unwanted sexual advances toward the daughter of a campaign donor. nancy pelosi called for an

ethics investigation. when you're running for president, you have to have a bus, right? jay leno shows some of the candidates' super hot wheels. >> have you noticed you can tell how well a candidate is doing financially by the size of the tour bus. there's mitt romney's bus. that's pretty impressive. there's michele bachmann, that's a big bus, too. tim pawlenty, not so much. >> let's go to rob marciano live in atlanta. rob, you showed me a tropical storm last time we talked that's developing. tell me more about this. >> this thing is looking more interesting, and it will probably become a tropical depression before the day is done. they'll fly a hurricane hunter in there to check it out later today, it's between the yucatan peninsula and western cuba, heading towards the gulf of mexico where waters are toasty. intensification is likely over the next 24 hours. our computer models are saying

preliminary forecast brings it somewhere between mexico, texas, potentially louisiana friday, saturday or sunday of this weekend. be prepared there. we'll have more up dates throughout the day today and certainly at this time tomorrow morning. let's talk about air travel. tampa, orlando, miami, minneapolis, you'll see thunderstorms today. but new york city will not. it's going to be a lovely day with low levels of humidity. temperatures staying below 90 there. above 100 again in dallas, texas. a spot where it's awfully cool, the dark side of the moon or the far side of the moon where nasa lunar orbiter discovered a couple of volcanos over there, ali. not the typical ballistic kind, these are a little more mundane, rather kind. this leads to some questions as to what was going on with the moon about three our four billion years ago and what was going on because of this discovery, i can't tell you. but cool pictures from nasa and we thought we'd share them.

>> i've always wanted to know what was going on on the moon three or four billion years ago. no one has been able to give me a straight answer excepted for you. >> magna all over the place, a hot mess. >> parties, free love, people smoking. >> like i said, a hot molten mess. >> rob marciano, check in with you on "american morning." let's get a look at the day of the word, downgrade. you probably understand the concept. i have specific details on what happens if the u.s.'s credit rating is downgraded right after this short break. 53 minutes after the hour.

56 minutes after the hour.

carter evans live from new york at the nasdaq markets site. carter, forget the debt ceiling for a minute. there's a whole lot of stuff. economic reports and earnings you're looking at and futures. what's going on? >> futures are up slightly this morning. we have economic reports. the fed's beige book survey of economic regions around the country, the oil inventory report this morning, also durable goods reports this morning. we have a ton of reports including a couple big ones, conoco phillips and delta. in the meantime let's show you what's trending on cnnmoney.com. talking about the debt ceiling. all back to the drawing board. i also wanted to talk about amazon. amazon reporting after the close yesterday, ali, sales up almost 51% from last year to about $10 billion. profit fell slightly, but still better than expected. if you look above me, i have the ticker in the pre market, up almost 6% right now.

>> dunkin' donuts, you couldn't talk smack to people in the northeast. it was a tired old fussy company, gone through a real change in the last year. now it's going to ipo. >> the question, ali, is will dunkin' donuts be as popular in the rest of the country as it is in the northeast. that's what shareholders are counting on. cnn money has an interesting story that throws iced coffee on the ipo. they ask is this really worth it or is it all a sugar high and fade quickly? they look at the finances to find out if it really is a good deal. >> i certainly like their little egg white flad breads. we'll check in with you later. now back to the word of the day, downgrade. here is the official definition, reduced to a lower grade, rank or level of importance. here is why it's important today. form dozens of years u.s. debt was essentially a risk-free investment. there is now a risk of lowering what is, in essence, our credit

score. mohamed el-erian is ceo of pimco, one of the most influential people in the bond universe. here is what he had to say about why the risk of a downgrade is such a serious issue. >> we have an economic system globally that is constructed on the basis of a strong core. in the middle of this core, at the center of the center, is the aaa credit rating of the united states. so the aaa credit rating holds together all sorts of things in the global system. if someone we end up losing that aaa, we will see a lot of realignments that can be very, very costly. >> congressional leaders won't stop their squawking over what to do about the debt ceiling. but could it be music to our ears? here is your punch line. >> something sounded familiar, and i just couldn't put it together. well here. >> every family knows a